These photographs of Belle Époque Venice were processed and colored using the Photochrom process. The Library of Congress' page on the photochrom process explains it: "Photochrom prints are ink-based images produced through 'the direct photographic tran…
On September 16, 1920, as hundreds of Wall Street workers headed out for lunch, a horse-drawn wagon parked in front of J. P. Morgan Bank — the world’s most powerful banking institution. Inside the wagon, 100 pounds (45 kg) of dynamite with 500 pounds (2…
These two pictures are shown side by side in the Andrei Pozdeev Museum. The museum caption reads: "(Left) The artist Eugen Stepanovich Kobytev the day he went to the front in 1941. (Right) In 1945 when he returned”. This is the human face after four years …
In the 1950s and 1960s, there existed a 'parallel world' of American advertising where mainstream brands targeted the African-American middle and upper classes in lead magazines such as Ebony and Jet. These ads never ran in wider society and show a very differ…
It’s hard to believe it, for a brief period of 6 years, it was possible to mail a baby or small child through the U.S. Postal Service. Yeah, you heard it right, it was legal to mail a baby in the United States and it happened more than once and by all a…
The original settlement of San Cristobal de la Habana was founded on St. Christopher’s Day in July of 1515 and slightly more than four years later was relocated to the city of the bay of Bahia de la Habana. Not surprisingly, the ports and bridges provid…
The outbreak of war in 1914 left many Belgians homeless and penniless. Germany invaded Belgium on its way to France, sending hundreds of thousands of Belgian refugees fleeing for their lives. The number of people who fled the country from 1914-18 was ap…
The Human Spinning Rotor or simply “The Rotor” was invented by a German scientist, Ernst Hoffmeister, and was financially supported by businessman Carl Friese. They operated a Rotor in West Germany at Oktoberfest in 1949. Hoffmeister and Friese had an a…
For hundreds of years, Sami people harnessed reindeer and strapped on Nordic skis as a way to travel across vast snowy expanses. Skijoring ("ski driving") is still popular in all Scandinavian countries. Reindeer races are still held in Tromso, Norway; Inar…
On one side towered a 7ft 3in (2.21m) German man-mountain who quit his job with an American freak show to join the Wehrmacht. On the other stood a 5ft 7in (170 cm) AP photographer Eddie Worth. Jakob Nacken stood quietly while the British troops frisked …
The Amphicar was manufactured in West Germany and first made an appearance in America at the 1961 New York Auto Show. Originally designed by Hanns Trippel, these amphibious cars hit the US market from 1961 to 1967. Most notable for their ability to crui…
By the 1890s postcards were widely available throughout continental Europe. The postcards appealed to tourists looking for a souvenir of their travels abroad. Although travel was still largely limited to elites, it was becoming more accessible to the middl…
This is the story behind the famous picture of the test pilot George Aird ejected from his Lightning F1 fighter plane. The picture was taken by Jim Meads on September 13, 1962. It was published in newspapers all around the world at the time and many peo…
Lie detector tests have become a popular cultural icon — from crime dramas to comedies to advertisements — the picture of a polygraph pen wildly gyrating on a moving chart is a readily recognized symbol. NYPD criminologist Roy Post invented his own vers…
Recreational cannabis smoking took on a negative connotation in the American cultural imagination when people began to associate it with Mexican immigrants arriving in the US. After the Mexican Revolution of 1910, a wave of Mexican immigrants poured int…
Remnants of the glorious Viking past are scattered throughout the countryside of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. Particularly in Sweden’s Uppland province, there are thousands of stones carved with runic inscriptions dating from the Bronze Age up to modern ti…
Ladies, this is how you land a man in 1938-style. We always find these vintage “dating tips” for single women hilarious. Just think about it: “Don’t drink too much, as a man expects you to keep your dignity all evening. Drinking may make some girls seem cle…
In 1919 Chicago was in the throes of an exhausting heatwave. Thousands flocked to the beaches lining Lake Michigan for some relief. Among them: a group of black boys that included 17-year-old Eugene Williams. Eugene, who was on a raft, inadvertently dri…
In the 19th century, there were no real institutions to regulate the advertising claims of health products. In such a climate, a popular so-called “patent medicine” market flourished. Manufacturers of these medical products often made misleading claims …
It was June 1980, just six months after the Soviet Union had invaded its southern neighbor to forestall the collapse of a pro-Soviet government in Kabul. Condemned by an Islamic war tribunal for denouncing nine families to the Russians, the man in the p…